Here Are the Movies We Will Be Arguing About Over the Next Six Months

This article originally appeared on VICE Canada.

This September will be the 40th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. However, the organizers weren't as interested in the festival's modest roots on Tuesday as they were in the revealing its line-up of audience-friendly movies, which will probably be competing for Oscars in six months.

Of the roughly 50 movies announced today (including a number of trailers that kiss-ass journalists actually clapped for), the ones you'll actually care about include the world premieres of: Michael Moore's Where to Invade Next, which is a funny title and good question; Ridley Scott's The Martian, which has Matt Damon already infamously saying "I'm going to science the shit out of it"; Jay Roach's Bryan Cranston-starring Trumbo; and Stephen Frears's Lance Armstrong movie The Program, which looks like it could be terrific thanks to Ben Foster's crazy eyes.

However, the film that seemed best received among the 100-plus journos at the TIFF headquarters in Toronto Tuesday morning was Peter Scollett's Freeheld, which stars Ellen Page and Julianne Moore in the true-life story of Laurel Hester, a Jersey detective fighting to leave her pension to her domestic partner. Adapted by the writer of Philadelphia and co-starring Michael Shannon and Steve Carell, Freeheld appears to have the potential to be the rare commercially successful film about gay rights.

The opening night film (always the most overhyped/criticized portion of TIFF) will be Quebec indie director turned Hollywood auteur Jean-Marc Vallee's Demolition, starring a not terrifying-looking Jake Gyllenhaal playing a sad banker.

Oh, also Johnny Depp has a movie where he likely will have some weird hair. His wig will be playing a gangster in Scott Cooper's Black Mass.

For CanCon, this year's festival is heavy (again/of course/come on) on Paul Gross, who is directing and starring in the war film Hyena Road and appearing as a gangster (I think) in Deepa Metha's Beeba Boys, a Sikh crime saga set in Vancouver, where everyone is amazingly dressed and the tone is more scattered than a AK-drive by.

Other interesting tidbits dropped Tuesday from Piers Handling, the CEO of TIFF, and Cameron Bailey, the artistic director/man about town, include the fact that King Street will be shut down for the first few days of the festival and there will be a program devoted to "Longform Television" (i.e. HBO is very good).

TIFF runs September 10-20 and will have about 300 films.

For more on TIFF, here's their website to click around on.

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